The invention relates to a cross country ski boot designed more particularly for racing.
Presently known cross country or langlauf ski boots generally comprise soles made of moulded plastics material. These soles are shaped so as to be fitted, at the front, to suitable binding devices ensuring the connection between the boot and the cross country ski solely at the front end of the boot. Known cross country ski boots have soles with flat lower face, whose width is greater than the width of the ski receiving the boot. Consequently, the boot projects laterally on either side of the ski.
Such an embodiment of the soles of cross country ski boots has a certain number of drawbacks. In the first place, a large quantity of plastics material is required for manufacturing each sole, since the thickness of the sole is large enough in the plantar support zone to obtain a sufficient rigidity of the boot in this zone where it is connected to the ski. Furthermore certain cross country ski boots may be provided with one or more longitudinal grooves opening in the lower surface of the sole, these grooves being adapted on longitudinal centering members fast with the ski, having for example a V-shaped section. These centering members thus ensure that the boot returns into correct longitudinal position at the end of the movement of the foot when the boot comes to rest, flat, on the ski. However, due to the provision of a flat horizontal surface on either side of the or each longitudinal centering groove, it may happen that, if the boot is slightly offset laterally during the movement of the foot, the groove of the sole is not placed exactly above the V-sectioned centering member, so that it is a marginal zone of the lower flat surface of the sole which comes into contact with the edge of the centering member. The boot does not therefore return into correct flat position on the ski but, on the contrary, it is held slightly inclined at a certain distance from the upper surface of the ski in a position of unstable equilibrium. These are therefore very considerable drawbacks, particularly in equipment used for racing.